


In arduis fidelis

by annebenedicte



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 14:27:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annebenedicte/pseuds/annebenedicte
Summary: why Alex is coming back to Holby - my first take on it





	In arduis fidelis

Alex took a deep breath and strode in the hospital’s lobby. Once again, she was struck by the lack of security that allowed anyone to walk in, but then, of course, this was a civilian hospital. The last weeks had taken their toll and the deep shadows under her eyes matched her dark hair. For the umpteenth time, she wondered what she was doing – her duty, she supposed. After all, that’s what had been drummed into them ever since Sandhurst – courage, discipline, integrity, loyalty… She had come for loyalty’s sake – even though it hurt.

“In arduis fidelis – faithful in adversity” The RAMC motto had never made more sense. This was one of the most difficult things she had ever had to do in her life. Alex found AAU without too much difficulty, and the office where a short-haired blonde was hunched over her computer. The door was ajar, so she just walked in. Serena raised her eyes at the intrusion and looked at the intruder silently. Alex observed the woman she had never met, but whom she felt she knew intimately. She looked as wretched as herself – red-rimmed eyes and matted hair.

Serena cleared her throat: “You’re – Major Dawson, right? I’ve seen your picture.” Bernie didn’t keep many pictures with her – the Army had taught her the art of travelling light – but the picture of the two women in uniform, posing in front of a Medevac chopper, had been serving as a bookmark in Bernie’s favourite book.

“Alex, please – and I’ve seen yours.”

The two women fell silent, an awkward silence fast becoming stifling in the small office. Finally, Alex perched on the desk and swallowed hard: “I had to come. I feel – well, I owed it to her. She would have wanted you to know.”

“You were there, weren’t you? When…”

“Yes, I was.”

Alex closed her eyes, letting the terrible memories overwhelm her for a minute. What was supposed to be a pleasant Kenyan break had turned into a nightmare. Although there had never been any question of the two women reuniting, Bernie had got back in touch with Alex once she had settled in Nairobi. She had written her a long email, apologising for having hurt her. She had told her former lover that she was sorry for not having been braver then – for not having had the courage to commit to her fully. And she had told her about her break-up with Serena – how Serena had chosen the safety of Holby and home rather than her. And how she now understood how Alex must have felt when she had chosen Marcus over her. Alex had written back a few comforting words – she couldn’t deny it was painful to know that Bernie had found someone else, but she also wanted her to be fulfilled, even without her. Knowing that Bernie was suffering now she and Serena had separated didn’t make her happy. They had fallen into the habit of writing a few lines regularly, neither of them having much time to spare, but both holding on to that correspondence as a comforting lifeline. Alex had finally re-enlisted, and a month before, she had suggested she used her leave to come and visit Bernie in Nairobi.

The visit had started well – Bernie had bent her ear about Serena, but Alex had expected that. She had stifled the twinges of desires she still felt for her former lover and listened, over several glasses of wine. Alex had eschewed the army barracks in favour of a nice hotel, Bernie had managed to wrangle a few days off, and they had enjoyed the swimming-pool and cocktails on the terrace. And they had talked – and talked. About Alex’s new postings. About Bernie’s new venture. About Cameron and Charlotte. Ric Griffin was keeping an eye on Cameron from afar, and Bernie had told Alex that after a few hiccups, he’d seemed settled in Cardiothoracics. She was planning to fly back to the UK in a few months to see him – she would love to see Charlotte, too, but her daughter still refused to communicate with her. She had a new relationship with her son, though, and she wanted to keep it alive. Alex had asked her if she would visit Serena, too, and Bernie had blushed: “I don’t know, Alex – I just – when I left – I told her I’d be there for her if she needed me, but I’m sure she doesn’t. And – I don’t know if I could take it. I can’t take any more heartbreak.”

“You still love her.”

Bernie had bitten her lower lip and bowed her head – she didn’t need to answer that.

The day IT had happened had begun as any other sunny scorching day in Nairobi. Bernie had been at work, and she had joined Alex for an early dinner in a restaurant in town. They’d heard a commotion in the street, the sound of gunshots, and both women had sprung up and run to the scene. Alex would never forgive herself for not being just a little bit quicker – for not reaching the scene half-a-second before Bernie. She had no children, no family – Bernie had had a lot more to lose. When the second round of shots had rang in the air, she had thrown herself to the ground instinctively, screaming at Bernie to do the same. Bernie, bent over the body of the driver of the car, had not. Then, it was a blur – she remembered yelling for someone to call an ambulance, wrenching the intubation kit from the paramedic, holding Bernie’s hand during the ambulance ride.

“Signs of hemoptysis significative of a tracheobronchial injury, plus CT scan showed a bullet in the pulmonary vein. I suggest a median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass, and pulmonary venectomy”

“Clamps!”

“Do we all agree?”

“Time of death 6.45.”

The surgeons had done all they could but the aortic root wound proved fatal. Several hours later, she was staring unseeingly at the face she had so often held in her hands and kissed passionately.

The funeral had been excruciating. Although Bernie wasn’t serving anymore full time, she had accepted part-time military duties, and so the Army took charge. They brought the body back to England and gave the major a military funeral. In full uniform, Alex had risen with the rest when the Union Jack covered coffin entered the church, carried by four young men in uniform. She had flown back with the transport and hadn’t had time to see either Cameron or Charlotte before the service. Not that she had been looking forward to that – although Bernie had told her Cameron had accepted their affair, Alex hadn’t see him since the last time she had been home with Bernie, when the latter was still married. She looked around the church and saw the two young people in the front row. Charlotte, in a black dress, was crying on Marcus’ shoulder and Cameron was standing stiffly beside them, staring at the coffin.

A vicar went to stand before the coffin and Alex heard the words she had heard too many times for fallen colleagues: “Jesus said, I am the resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I hold the keys of hell and death. Because I live, you shall live also.”

The vicar bowed and walked to the lectern. He turned and faced the sparse congregation: “We meet in the name of Jesus Christ, who died and was raised to the glory of God the Father. Grace and mercy be with you.”

Then he called Cameron to the lectern and Alex saw the young man straighten up and take a deep breath: “My mother, Major Berenice Grizelda Wolfe, was an exceptional woman – a talented trauma surgeon, a dedicated officer and a loving mother. I wish I had known her better as an adult, but life didn’t give us the chance to be in the same place at the same time… She lost her life not in a combat zone, but saving someone else’s and I think she would have be proud of that. Please join us in prayer.”

He went back to his pew, where Charlotte was sobbing convulsively and the vicar prayed aloud: “Almighty God, you judge us with infinite mercy and justice and love everything you have made. In your mercy turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven; through our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

The rest of the service passed in a blur. For all her military composure, her eyes were wet and she wept softly all the way to the cemetery, just briefly acknowledging Army mates coming to greet her. No one had known about them and no one could know – Alex hoped her sorrow would be taken as her grieving for a good friend. The mournful tone of a bugle playing The Last Post jolted her out of her trance and she started to make her way to Cameron, to say… Well, she didn’t know what, exactly – offering her condolences seemed a little mundane under the circumstances. As the mourners dispersed and she approached him, she heard him say to another mourner: “No, Serena couldn’t come. I did tell her, but she was at a conference abroad, and couldn’t come home in time. Anyway… They weren’t in touch. I think… I think Mum did intend to come home and mend things – make things right between them. But she also feared the pain that would ensue if she was rejected once more – you know how it is.”

Alex took another deep breath and forced herself to look Serena straight in the eyes: “She never stopped loving you. I wanted you to know that. I think she would have wanted you to know. Those past weeks – she never stopped talking about you, never stopped wondering what had gone wrong, why she wasn’t good enough for you.”

Serena bowed her head, and when she looked at Alex again, she was crying: “I was the one not good enough. I said all those things in guilt and in anger – I never – I never thought…”

At Albies’ that day, she had felt as if she had no right to keep her partner with her. Pushing Bernie away had been a reflex of self-survival – she didn’t want to be with an all-forgiving Bernie at the time – she would have felt forever in her debt, and that wouldn’t have sat easily with her pride. She had been scared, too – terrified, in fact. Because what if she left everything behind – her job, her family, everything that was familiar to her, everything she could cling to, and then Bernie finally came to her senses – decided that after all, she couldn’t forgive her. Decided she wanted to break up – where would that have left Serena? Alone and adrift. She wept harder as she felt Alex’s hand on her arm: Bernie too had carried the burden of a broken heart and this was unbearable.


End file.
